Multiple reports from the Avs and Sportsnet's John Shannon confirm that Barrie's out for 4-6 weeks (i.e. for the season) with a sprained MCL. And Stephane Robidas went to the hospital after Ryan Garbutt's knee broke Robidas' leg...Garbutt stayed in the game and scored a goal.

Is it possible that Matt Cooke gets the Marty McSorley treatment here? This is a brutal hit and it serves to illustrate that the guy has not really learned his lesson. Throw the book at him for real this time, gets this guy out of the league.

I saw something else last night—can’t recall what or where—that said the 18 month repeat offender thing only applies to fines. That seems just as goofy as what Cox is saying, but hey it is still Gary Bettman’s NHL, so good luck making any sense of it.

Well the truth is, Cooke HAS cleaned up his game quite a bit since the last stupid sh*t he’s done. Now this… I mean, I can only expect this to be 10 or more games. I would call the NHL a disgrace if he gets less than 10 games, bare minimum. Hopefully 20. I would hope some of the players see the suspension and think twice before delivering horrible hits or knees.
On a side note, Chic and Stlouis are beating the absolute sh*t out of each other. Nice..

I don’t see Cooke back in this playoffs. But mostly because Minnesota only has 2 or 3 games left before Colorado closes them out. My guess is, they’ll suspend him for a long enough time for the NHLPA to make noise about the “technicality” of the 18-month grace period for repeat-offender status…. if the NHL wants to set a precedent about fines versus suspensions on this, they won’t find a better test case. Everybody hates Cooke anyways, he’s maybe the highest profile dirty player and the play in question was unquestionably dirty, intentional and dangerous, and it left a player injured for the duration.

I am disturbed by the NHLPA’s constant resistance to suspensions for dirty players/plays. What about standing up for those that have had their careers ended by these creeps? How about the guys that miss significant portions of seasons? Where is the PA’s voice for them? It seems that they are more interested in defending goons than skilled players. Face it, it’s the same people all the time.